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The 2013-2016 IAAF Strategic Plan has six Core Values: universality, leadership, unity, excellence, integrity and solidarity, and a Vision Statement: “To lead, govern and develop the sport of athletics in all its forms worldwide, uniting the Athletics Family in a spirit of excellence, integrity and solidarity.”

Olympic 400m champion Wayde van Niekerk leads the list of the latest star names confirmed for this year's Athletissima meeting in Lausanne, the eighth stop of the 2017 IAAF Diamond League series.

The South African, who broke Michael Johnson’s 400m world record wih a 43.03 performance in Rio running blind from lane eight, has chosen the Lausanne event to contest his first 400m in Europe this summer. He will run only one other 400m race before the IAAF World Championships London 2017. Van Niekerk is currently the only sprinter in history to have PBs faster than 10 seconds for 100m, 20 seconds for 200m and 44 seconds for 400m.

Another world record-holder on the slate is Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie who will be gunning for a fifth victory at the Swiss meeting. Lavillenie, the 2012 Olympic champion and seven-time European champion indoors and out, begins this IAAF Diamond League season as the only seven-time winner in this exclusive series.

Meanwhile, Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands will run the 200m, an event in which she has won the 2015 world title and European crown in 2014. Schippers has yet to claim a victory on the Pontaise track to her record, after defeats in the 100m in 2014 and in the 200m the following year. She will face multiple Swiss champion Mujinga Kambundji and the young local athlete from Lausanne Sarah Atcho, the Swiss U23 indoor record-holder in the 60m and 200m.

Other standout Swiss athletes have also already confirmed their participation. Selina Büchel, who retained her European indoor title in Belgrade, will compete the 800m. European bronze medallist Lea Sprunger will compete in the 400m hurdles as will 2014 European champion Kariem Hussein on the men's side.